For Society, For Humanity
by Koko'Abey
Summary: (AU-all mortals! T-M for the likelihood of much swearing.) With all the troubles of life, Percy has an idea he hopes can remind people why life is worth living, despite it being easy to hate, and hard to face. For once, Percy plans on going above and beyond for a school project. (Inspired by a speech someone gave on Instagram. It really stuck in my mind.) Full summary in bio.


**A/N: A taste of a potential new story I want to write. Lemme know if it's any good!**

**And go vote on the poll in my profile! Which story(ies) do you think I should do first?**

* * *

Percy felt conflicted. A part of him wanted people to stop hating the world, just because some things upset them, and to be grateful for what they have, be it material items, friends, loved ones; yet on the other hand, he didn't want people to just ignore the problems around them by engrossing themselves in reading, or art, or any other pastimes. He wanted to find a way to combine the two, so that people would be aware of the issues, but not let them get to people so deeply that they just give up on humanity and life.

And so he began. He had his inspiration for something he had to do anyway. The project for his world economics class (he'd heard it wasn't too bad, and not all that time consuming) wasn't due until June, and it was only October, but some people had already started and hey. Might as well start right away when the idea is fresh and still sounds compelling enough to jump into.

The project was this: find a way you can help your community, something that could be applied to any first world country. The project itself was called 'For the People'. The teacher—Ms. Linder—gave this project each year, to see who cared about helping their fellow citizens. More often than not, she got simple little reports about how someone cleaned up garbage around the highway, or read to kids; ideas that were unoriginal and even then were usually half-assed. She was definitely expecting the same thing this year, especially from some of her lazier, less motivated students.

But Percy had two very special talents: pissing off people—especially his superiors—and surprising people when they least expect it. Whether he realized it or not (which he didn't), he began making plans to do just that.

* * *

**[Couldn't just end it there! Far too short.]**

With all his focus on the piece of scratch paper–that would later come to be known as the fuel for many of his future exploits–he scrawled onto the paper as fast as he could to get all the ideas suddenly popping into his head so he wouldn't forget them. As he wrote, he kept getting more ideas, and plans to make these ideas happen. He'd never felt so inspired, so motivated to do a school project. Percy realized just how exhilarated he was by all the objectives he created, unorganized as it currently was. It didn't matter, he could always fix it up more, later. That'd be the next step: Organizing the ideas into a coherent order to get better results. Also, to do the ones he figured wouldn't yield as great of results. Trial and error. With a pause, he knew there would be some trial and error, since he couldn't predict people's actions, and therefor he was going to need all the upcoming months.

Having been so engrossed by his thoughts, his mother, Sally, had to open her son's door to find him sitting at his desk for a change, somewhat hunched over a single piece of paper, very dull pencil in hand, looking thoughtful. She hated to break him away from his work, since he already had concentration issues, but he had to eat.

"Percy, honey, what are you working on?" He just kept staring at the wall, unaware she'd even walked in. Sally walked up behind him, grabbed his shoulders with a "Boo!" Percy jumped, almost falling out of the chair, as Sally stood back to laugh.

"Mom! What was that for? When'd you even get in here?" His eyes were still wide from the shock. "You can stop laughing already, it wasn't that funny."

She pulled herself together, to a degree, wiping away the tears. "Sorry, sweetie, you just looked so concentrated, and I'd been calling you for dinner for the past ten minutes. I walked in and you still didn't answer." She chuckled some more.

"You were, oh sorry. I'll be down–oh!–in a few minutes." As he interrupted himself, he got back to writing a bit more on his paper.

Sally smiled at her son, glad he was enthusiastic about homework for a change. Still, she had feed her son, when he _did _get so focused on something, he had a tendency to forget to fulfill his basic needs. "Percy, come out to eat, you can get right back to this when you're done."

He wrote one last sentence before sighing and standing up. She took the chance to sneak a glance at the paper, curious to what was holding his attention. She saw 'public speaking' and 'what's important' before she had to look away. _What is he planning? What class is this for? _

At the dinner table with her son and husband, Paul, she chose to ask him about it. "Percy, what was it that you were working on? You seemed pretty fascinated by it."

His eyes lit up a bit. "Oh, it's the year-long project for World Economics. I came up with my idea for it finally." He stopped with that, taking another bit of his spaghetti. Sally and Paul shared a curious side-look.

"So. . . What's your idea then?" Paul asked.

Percy got a shine in his eyes that made them wonder even more. "Until I get it more organized, it's a surprise." The conversation of the school project finalized there, nothing left to be said that would get answers.

* * *

The next day at school, a Thursday, Percy trudged through his classes until his second to last class, World Economics. The end of his day was best, World Economics, then Marine Biology. He also liked Greek language and culture, but he struggled with it sometimes. At any rate, the day had been rather slow and uneventful, until his fifth period started with Ms. Linder asking, "Class, how are your 'For the People' projects coming along? Anyone have good ideas already?" About eight others of the about 27 person class raised their hands. Percy did too, and she looked a bit surprised, but did her best to hide it. "Mr. Jackson, want to share your idea?"

He shook his head. "Not yet, I'm still trying to organize it before I do anything."

"Very well. Any others want to share?" No one did, so she went on. "Who's still have trouble coming up with ideas?" Most everyone else raised their hands, and Ms. Linder mentally sighed. The class continued with people getting into groups to brainstorm, and for the nine who already had one, sat by themselves to do what work on they could from the classroom. Percy took the chance to start getting the right ones in the right places, muttering to himself as he did.

For the majorly ADHD guy, people were shocked at how intensely he worked. Percy was trapped in his own little world, having no idea that he kept getting looked at and whispered about. Even in his favorite class, Marine Biology, he had a hard time not thinking about his project. This was going to be an interesting seven and a half months.

* * *

**A/N: So yeah. That's a taste of the new story that came to me yesterday from something someone said on Instagram. I'm not entirely sure how much I like this, or if I'll even be able to meet my own expectations for it, but I want to try. **

**Again, go vote on the poll on my profile! Which idea(s) do you want me to focus on?**

**RnR! Thanks!**

**~Koko oxo**


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